FLORRIE. Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.
L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a shower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely they are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?
FLORRIE. Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks, I suppose.
L. Now you have it, Florrie.
VIOLET (sighing). There are so many beautiful things we never see!
L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we should all sigh for—that there are so many ugly things we never see.
VIOLET. But we don't want to see ugly things!
L. You had better say, "We don't want to suffer them." You ought to be glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes can ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than his own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.
VIOLET. I don't understand;—how is that like the leaves?
L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our neglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an inch of a green leaf in a brown stone, and takes more notice of it than of all the green in the wood, and you, or I, or any of us, would be unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the brooks in Vallombrosa;—and then go out to play croquet, as if nothing had happened.